Muhammad Iqbal

Sir Allama Mohammad Iqbal
Full name	Muhammad Iqbal
Born	November 9, 1877 Sialkot, Punjab, British India
Died	April 21, 1938 (aged 60) Lahore, Punjab, British India
Era	Modern philosophy
Region	British India
School	Islamic philosophy
Main interests	Urdu poetry, Persian poetry
Influenced by[show]
Influenced[show]
Website	allamaiqbal.com

Sir Muhammad Iqbal (Urdu: محمد اقبال) (November 9, 1877 – April 21, 1938) was a Muslim poetand philosopher born in Sialkot, British India (now in Pakistan), whose poetry in Urdu andPersian is considered to be among the greatest of the modern era.^[1] He is commonly referred to as Allama Iqbal (علامہ اقبال‎, Allama lit. Scholar).

After studying in England and Germany, Iqbal established a law practice, but concentrated primarily on writing scholarly works on politics, economics, history, philosophy and religion. He is best known for his poetic works, including Asrar-e-Khudi—which brought a knighthood—Rumuz-e-Bekhudi, and the Bang-e-Dara, with its enduring patriotic song Tarana-e-Hind. InAfghanistan and Iran, where he is known as Iqbāl-e Lāhorī (اقبال لاهوری‎ Iqbal of Lahore), he is highly regarded for his Persian works.

Iqbal was a strong proponent of the political and spiritual revival of Islamic civilization across the world, but specifically in India; a series of famous lectures he delivered to this effect were published as The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam. One of the most prominent leaders of the All-India Muslim League, Iqbal encouraged the creation of a "state in northwestern India for Indian Muslims" in his 1930 presidential address.^[2] Iqbal encouraged and worked closely with Muhammad Ali Jinnah, and he is known as Muffakir-e-Pakistan ("The Thinker of Pakistan"), Shair-e-Mashriq ("The Poet of the East"), and Hakeem-ul-Ummat ("The Sage of theUmmah"). He is officially recognised as the "national poet" in Pakistan. The anniversary of his birth (یوم ولادت محمد اقبال‎ – Yōm-e Welādat-e Muḥammad Iqbāl) on November 9 is a holiday in Pakistan.

Early life

Muhammad Iqbal was born on November 9, 1877 in Sialkot, in the Punjab province of British India in what is now Pakistan. During the reign ofMughal emperor, Shah Jahan—according to scholar Bruce Lawrence—Iqbal's Kashmiri Pandit ancestors from Kashmir had converted toIslam. According to some sources: "The family had migrated from Kashmir where Iqbal's Brahmin ancestors had been converted to Islam." Iqbal often wrote about his being "a son of Kashmiri-Brahmins but (being) acquainted with the wisdom of Rûm and Tabriz."

Iqbal's father, Nur Muhammad, was a tailor, who lacked formal education, but who had great devotion to Islam and Sufism and a "mystically tinged piety." Iqbal's mother was known in the family as a "wise, generous woman who quietly gave financial help to poor and needy women and arbitrated in neighbor's disputes." After his mother's death in 1914, Iqbal wrote an elegy for her:

Who would wait for me anxiously in my native place?
Who would display restlessness if my letter fails to arrive
I will visit thy grave with this complaint:
Who will now think of me in midnight prayers?
All thy life thy love served me with devotion—
When I became fit to serve thee, thou hast departed.

At the age of four, young Iqbal